A short Latin prayer to the archangel of the Annunciation, asking him to be our advocate with Jesus and Mary and our strength in temptation.
O fortitudo Dei, sancte Gabriel, qui virgini Mariae incarnationem unigeniti Filii Dei annuntiasti, laudo et veneror te, o electe Spiritus, et supplex oro, ut meus apud Iesum Christum, Salvatorem nostrum, et eius benedictam matrem advocatus esse, atque in omnibus angustiis me solari et corroborare velis, ne ullis unquam tentationibus superatus, Deum meum peccato offendam. Amen.
O strength of God, St. Gabriel, who didst announce to the Virgin Mary the incarnation of the only-begotten Son of God, I praise and venerate thee, O chosen spirit, and humbly pray that thou wouldst be my advocate with Jesus Christ our Saviour and with His blessed Mother, and wouldst console and strengthen me in all my straits, lest, overcome by any temptation, I should ever offend my God by sin. Amen. (Our translation.)
At the Angelus; on the Annunciation (25 March) and the feast of the archangels; in temptation.
Gabriel's name means 'strength of God', and that is how this prayer addresses him. He is the angel of the Incarnation: he told Zachary of the birth of John, and Mary of the birth of Jesus (Luke 1). Because he stood in the room at Nazareth when the Word was made flesh, the Church asks him to be an advocate before Jesus and His Mother — the two he first announced to the world.
The Latin is printed in the Orate Fratres of 1901, as the Thesaurus Precum Latinarum records it. The English is our own translation.
Gabriel's feast was 24 March, the eve of the Annunciation, until the three archangels were joined on 29 September in 1969.
